Sunday, January 30, 2005

Please feed me - punk vegan cookbook

When I was at Gilman last week I was surprised that almost the first thing I saw inside was a copy of my good friend Niall's new book, Please Feed Me. It was on sale there.
This is the American reprint of Niall's book, Document - A Story of Hope (which is out of print and no longer available). The content is largely the same.

Please Feed Me is a punk rock vegan cookbook. Each recipe features an anecdote by a band that performed via the Hope Collective, a popular punk booking collective in Dublin the author helped maintain for over a decade. (The Hope Collective became a blue print and inspiration for punk and DIY spaces across Ireland and the UK.) The book features contributions from over 120 people who donated their vegan recipes and thoughts on the importance of the punk rock community and culture, including such seminal punk banks such as Fugazi, Bikini Kill, and Chumbawamba.

In addition to great recipes, Please Feed Me uniquely illustrates the connections between community, art, activism and health. The thunderous subtext of the book is the vital underground community and network created and maintained by a collective of organizers and hundreds of musicians at a time when most punk bands were signing to major labels for the highest dollar amount. The book documents pieces of the stories of many popular US and international punk bands that continue to have a major influence on youth subcultures today.